This Monday the young philanthropist and his mother, Blythe Clifford, stopped by the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s Blair Drive headquarters to present BackPack Buddies with a giant check (only a few inches smaller than William himself).

Pretty amazing for a soon-to-be third grader!

William first learned about BackPack Buddies at his school, AB Combs Elementary, two years ago. Clifford said he came home talking about how he needed to do something to help make sure all his classmates had food to eat.

[quote]“I heard kids needed help,” William said. “I usually say there are two choices when something needs to be done. One, you don’t do anything. Two, you do it.”[/quote]

In addition to the check, the National Peanut Board also gave William a $500 grant to jumpstart next year’s efforts. That money is sitting in a savings account now, but William already has plenty of thoughts for how it can help in 2015.

William’s plan for the grant money is to invest it back into his dozens of volunteers. He has visions of t-shirts and a pizza party, as ways of saying “thank you” to everyone who pitched in. These are ideas that he hasn’t’ done before, since he wanted all donations to go directly towards fighting childhood hunger.

That’s not the only way William’s wonderful efforts could grow next year.

Clifford says that the Mayor of Roxboro and a business leader from Greensboro’s Fresh Market stores have reached out, wanting to know how they could get involved.